A physical sample of an exemplary embodiment of the invention is attached hereto.
The invention relates to an elastic conveyor belt with conducting fibres for the discharge of static electricity.
Conveyor belts with elastic fibres realized with natural or synthetic fibres are used in several productive fields, such as in the packaging or in the field of leathers"" processing, but also in many other productive environments, to satisfy some production requirements.
In the leather sector, the perching process is used to give back elasticity and softness to tanned leather after going through various treatments. The perching process consists in beating leather repeatedly and casually with metal pegs, as leather moves through the perching machine compressed between two elastic fabrics.
In this process, it is obvious that the conveyor belt that conveys leather under the perching units must have high elastic properties, to endure the repeated actions of vertical beating that the perching units perform on the conveyor belt and therefore on leather while it passes transversally before coming out of the machine.
Just because of this treatment, leather accumulates static electricity due to the friction between the belt and the same leather and this electricity is the cause of a series of drawbacks.
One of these, is the fact that leathers remain attached to the conveyor belt of the perching machine and are discharged with difficulty.
Moreover leathers that have accumulated static electricity discharge the same on the people who handle them, that is the operators who take them to pass on to successive treatments.
Another drawback may arise because the static electricity of leather is discharged on electronic devices associated with the perching machines, such as stacking units, causing a bad working of said devices.
All these drawbacks remain till now unsolved, for the phenomenon of static electricity, because said static electricity is produced just during the perching operation and is therefore impossible to eliminate static electricity at the source, at least with the existing techniques.
Attempts carried out with the aim of discharging static electricity of the belts through the direct contact of the same conveyor belts with metallic rollers or with brushes connected to the ground, were not successful because of the high quantity of static electricity produced.
EP-A-0368233 discloses a perching machine for the treatment of the leather using two elastic conveyor belts between which the leather is compressed during the perching process. But said belts have not the capability to discharge static electricity.
Moreover the perching process needs a conveyor belt with high extensibility characteristics, together with the capacity to discharge high quantities of static electricity.
What has been heretofore described, is just one of the drawbacks that the known technique cannot solve in the field of transportation of materials involving conveyor belts with elastic fibres.
Actually, there are many sectors, besides tannery, that are registering the above mentioned drawbacks. One of these sectors notably is packaging, where films of synthetic materials or cellophane accumulate a large amount of static electricity and provoke several drawbacks with reference to this matter. The purpose of the invention is to eliminate the just mentioned drawbacks.
It shall be noted that elastic fabrics with conducting fibres recently appeared as experimental products in the fashion sector where some stylists, with the purpose of reaching peculiar aesthetical and chromatic effects, tried to realize garments, with stretch or not, with carbon, copper, aluminium, silver or gold fibres.
No industrial application is known to the Applicant, above all in the sector of belt conveyors, elasticized fabrics with conducting fibres.
The present invention proposes therefore to transfer from the fashion sector to the industrial sector, and specifically to that of conveyor belts, the technology of elasticized fabrics with fibres made with conducting materials and improved in respect of the elasticity range and the capability to discharge state electricity.
The main object of the invention is therefore to provide an elastic conveyor belt with intrinsic properties able to eliminate the formation and the accumulation of static electricity both in the belt and in the objects transported by the belt itself.
An other object of the present invention is to provide a conveyor belt with conducting fibres having a high extension range capable to follow the high elasticity of the elastic fabric with which the conveyor belt is made.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a conveyor belt having the same properties of discharging electricity independently from the position of the weft or the warp of the fabric in respect of the running direction of the conveyor belt.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a conveyor belt in which the conducting fibres are displaced in such a way to create a very efficient conducting fibres system, capable to discharge high quantities of static electricity.
An other object of the present invention is to provide a perching machine for the treatment of leather wherein the two conveyor belts between which the leather is submitted to the perching action are capable to discharge all static electricity accumulated in the leather during the perching.
The above objects are achieved according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention by the provision of a conveyor belt, especially a conveyor belt for a perching machine for softening of tanned leather, said conveyor belt being made of elastic fabric, and being provided, in the weft or in the warp of said elastic fabric, with elastic fibres of conducting material able to allow the discharge of static electricity accumulated by the belt, said elastic fibres forming series of lines, crossed in such a way that they form a plurality of meshes.
An aspect of the invention is that said conducting fibres have been made elastic by wounding each of said conducting fibres around the elastic yarns of said fabric, wherein said yarns have a high extension range. This avoids the breaking of conducting fibres during the elastic action and, particularly, during the extension of the elastic fibres.
An other aspect of the invention is that the arrangement of the conducting fibres shaped as meshes, permits to make the conveyor belt with the fabric disposed in any way, for example in the direction of the weft, or in the direction of the warp.
Moreover each mesh of the conducting fibres is electrically connected with every other meshes. This permits to discharge the electricity in any condition the conveyor belt is working.